


Blood in the Water

by Exophile_3D (bearbane)



Category: Legacy of Kain
Genre: Blood Drinking, Exophilia, F/M, Orgasm, Sex, Snuff, Underwater Sex, Unhappy Ending, Vaginal Sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-28
Updated: 2020-05-28
Packaged: 2021-03-03 05:48:56
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,448
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24419929
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bearbane/pseuds/Exophile_3D
Summary: A young woman, captured as prey for the Rahabim comes face to face with Rahab. She finds that the Lieutenant has an inexplicable penchant for water, and other even stranger proclivities.
Comments: 4
Kudos: 5





	Blood in the Water

**Author's Note:**

> This is something I wrote about 15 years ago, towards the end of my LoK fanfic writing days. I don't think it ever saw the light of day at the time, but it feels right to share it here. 
> 
> It does switch tense after the first few paragraphs, which is intentional. It jarred a little when I re-read it last night for the first time in years, but it does make sense, I think - let me know!
> 
> Apologies in advance for the weirdness...

It is said that drowning is the most peaceful way to die; that it is a slow descent into the welcoming dark, where the noise, bustle and demands of the daylight world can hold no further sway. Humans fear drowning as much as any other air-dependent creature, and although there are many more painful and drawn-out ways to die, this rarely ranks as a first choice.

Elsa will therefore find herself in something of a predicament.

The journey north along the well-traveled caravan trail had been relatively uneventful, and Elsa was extremely grateful for that fact. This was the first time her uncle had entrusted her with the safety of the trading caravan’s passage between the last two human cities, and she really wanted this trip to be a success.

Unfortunately, Elsa had decided to vary their normal route, taking a short cut along an older, disused path that skirted close to occupied territory – against the advice of the more experienced traders – and there, predictably, the attack had come. She had thought the path relatively safe, despite its proximity to enemy holdings. It passed along the edge of a large lake, and everything Elsa knew about the enemy dictated that this very fact should preclude the possibility of misadventure.

Then, they had come from the water.

It was impossible; it went against everything that was known about this hostile race, every piece of intelligence, every nugget of hard-won information, every detail in every legend ever written or told that the humans knew: vampires could not tolerate water.

And yet they came.

The fight was brief. Pure shock had overwhelmed the human traders – fighters of necessity all – before any resistance could be given, and the vampires were evidently in a hurry to depart. After a swift, brutal demonstration of the punishment for resistance, they were bundled into small craft and taken out on the body of the water. Elsa managed a glance at the lightening eastern sky before her boat entered a cavern on the far shore, and the world became dark.

That was four hours ago. Since then, Elsa has been diligently working to unscrew an ornate ventilation grille on the wall of a large, comfortably furnished room. She has been left entirely alone, with no indication of what is to become of her. Never one to waste time, she has availed herself of a knife, as well as a short falchion someone has carelessly left in the room with her, and has been trying to use it to effect her escape. When it slips for the third time, drawing a deep gash along her thumb, she hurls it from her in disgust and slumps to the floor, thumb to her lips, to re-evaluate the situation.

The room is vast, so much so that she spent ten minutes checking every corner and shadow for a hostile presence when she was first shoved inside. The ceiling is at least twenty feet above her head and is supported by slender columns of some jade-hued stone that she does not recognise. Despite its size, it feels airless and humid, and a faint mist seems to be permeating the room via the ventilation shafts. Elsa is already perspiring, and her recent tussle with the ventilation grille has not improved her condition or her temperament.

At floor level, reclining couches and a preponderance of cushions lend the room an air of comfort, but they are in such great quantities that she surmises the chamber is normally for public use. The rest of the room is adorned with a variety of trophies and ornaments, and reminds her of audience rooms she has seen before, apart from one small detail. The room is round, and is dominated by a pool around ten feet across that sits in the exact centre of the chamber. She has not yet given it much attention, since it is not about to speed her escape; but now, her interest piqued and her plans awry, she decides to take a closer look.

Its raised edge stands four feet above the floor and is constructed from overlapping blocks of lapis lazuli, inlaid with a recurring symbol. Above it, light flickers and dances in irregular lines, a veritable seduction of the eye, and Elsa blinks rapidly to dispel its hold.

Again, the incongruity of the feature strikes her, until at last its significance is hammered home. Until today, she believed that water meant safety for all humankind. Until today, she believed that as long as the rain fell and the tides continued to ebb and flow, the Empire could never achieve absolute control. This pool, this modest construct of stone and mortar, means that the tides truly have turned. The humans’ last advantage is gone.

Elsa looks down into the pool, despondent and almost ready to admit defeat. What she sees there jolts her from her fugue. Instead of a tiled bottom a few feet below the surface, Elsa sees a cavernous hall, complete with columns that match those in the room she now occupies, that stretches away out of sight. Elsa’s fingers grasp the edge of the pool tightly, and a few droplets of blood spill from her thumb to redden the water. Through one of the arches in the hall below, a dim light filters, suggesting that there is another exit to the floor she is on. It may be no better than the room she is in – in fact, it may well lead to disaster, but Elsa is already chafing at her impotence locked away in this room, and is willing to take the chance.

She leans over the edge to get a closer look and try to gauge how far she may have to swim underwater. The depth distorts the distance, she is sure, but she has dived for pearls before off the shores of her home town, and is a competent and strong swimmer. She is reasonably sure she can do this. Seeing no reason to delay now that she has a course of action, Elsa takes one more appraising glance around the room to see if there is anything that might be of use to her. She decides the falchion will weigh her down too much, so she sets it aside and pockets the small knife instead.

She then turns her attention to her breathing, exhaling slowly and thoroughly and concentrating on slowing her heartbeat, a feat of mental and physical discipline that painstaking practice has accorded her. Finally, calm and ready, she steps up to the edge of the pool and prepares to dive.

There is a figure in the water, distorted by the rippling liquid, and undulating languidly towards her.

Elsa’s preparation is wasted. Her heartbeat rockets and she takes a frantic, gasping breath. Already, she can see the figure more clearly, clearly enough to make out that it is male, and that his strange, undulating movement is propelling him upward at a speed that seems at odds with his sparing efforts. There must be some trick of the light that is affecting the colouration of objects below the surface, too, for his skin seems almost blue, an unnatural shade even for a vampire.

Elsa drops lightly from the pool rim, and casts about to locate the discarded falchion. Even as she turns away, there is an almighty staccato clap like the sound of a giant hand slapping the water, and the caravan trader is sprayed with a sharp hail of thousands of stinging droplets.

Her fingers grasp the wet hilt of the falchion, its grip sound despite the moisture, and she whirls again, wanting to face whatever has come out of the pool eye to eye.

The pool is deserted, but as she whips about, a stream of heavy droplets, seemingly suspended in the air, cascade to the floor with a chorus of wet slapping noises. Elsa blinks hard, wondering whether what she has just seen was real, or some trick of the misted air. Quickly, her mind provides her with the answer: the enemy can move faster than the human eye can follow, which suggests that the creature has just run out of the pool and is lurking somewhere in the room.

Now that the water has settled, Elsa can see a set of footprints gleaming wetly on the white marble floor, leading off to her left. Being possessed of a logical mind, she sidesteps to the right, and collides with something cold, solid and unyielding that feels like nothing so much as oiled shark skin.

It is a tribute to her presence of mind and a testament to her level of alarm that her next sidestep deposits her fully six feet away from the new arrival, from which distance she has the opportunity to study him in detail.

What she sees is both beautiful and terrible.

He is tall, this vampire-who-should-not-be, and exudes a presence that is much more than physical. His robust frame gleams not only with the water that cascades unendingly over his naked skin, but also with the coruscating reflections from tiny scales that raise his skin into a million miniature ridges.

Black hair is plastered wetly to his high, arching cheekbones and along the sharp line of his jaw, while thicker ropes of it are draped over his shoulders, spilling clear water in ceaseless slender jets. Fluted ear tips razor upwards through the glossy black fronds, and along with the dark tinted lips confirm the creature’s bloodline: but it is the eyes that capture and hold Elsa’s avid attention. They are pools of blue, the deepest azure, the colour of tropical waters on a perfect summer’s day; but there is nothing of the sunlit world about this one. The eyes are pools indeed, but they are fathomless and wild, and heavy with predatory intent.

Abruptly, the narrow face breaks into a smile that is reminiscent of a dark cave ringed with jagged rocks, and the creature advances a single step.

Belatedly, Elsa remembers the falchion.

In the blink of an eye, its point is wavering lightly inches from the creature’s chest: an open challenge. The smile broadens, and takes on a wicked tinge, and the brows arch expectantly. Elsa finds a lump in her throat that no amount of swallowing will dispel, but nonetheless makes an attempt at speech.

“Show me the way out, or I’ll kill you.”

She is surprised at how raspy and faint her voice sounds, but she is quickly distracted as the vampire breaks into a laugh, throwing back his head as though her threat is incredibly witty. Then, abruptly, the humour is gone as quickly as it arrived, and with an expression colder than death, he presses deliberately forward until the steel point pierces his chest.

Elsa’s jaw drops at his lack of concern for himself, and she whips back the blade to deliver a rough slash across his chest. The skin splits, revealing off-white flesh beneath the iridescent blue scales, accompanied by a tang of salt and another, sour and familiar odour that she cannot at this moment identify. Her eyes widen again as her opponent draws in a long breath through his teeth, his lips drawn into a wide and obscene grin. Surely he cannot be enjoying this?

“Tease,” he accuses, the first word he has spoken since he emerged from the pool. His tone is taunting, and his voice thick and gurgling, as though he has water in his lungs. Then, incredibly, he opens wide his arms and invites a second stroke, head back, eyes closed - to all appearances, completely vulnerable.

“Cut me,” he instructs.

Sickened and disheartened, Elsa lowers the sword. “No,”

“No?” There is anger in his voice now, booming like the crash of waves against an undefended shore, and Elsa is battered by it. “I had thought you might like to play a while, before you die.”

The falchion tip comes to rest heavily on the floor, and Elsa’s guts fill with ice and lead.

“Things will go a lot easier for you if you play.” The voice already seems less watery, as though this short stint on land has already drained the liquid from his lungs. The falchion is swept from limp fingers and disappears with a splash. Water runs from his body to pool and wind in rivulets about his feet.

“Easier?”

“Yes,” comes the reassuring reply. “If you play along, then your death will be serene: you’ll expire gently without even knowing it.” Again, the voice has changed. Now it is calm and lulling, like waves upon a calm and limpid pool; hypnotic.

“And if not?”

“…I have some large and rather exotic aquatic pets. However, I am rather short of volunteers to be shredded alive by rows of serrated, foot-long teeth.”

Elsa shudders and considers her limited options. She had once seen the victim of a shark attack. Twenty years after the event, he still had angry red teeth marks along the semicircular edge of his wound. It had sounded painful in the extreme, and she imagines this creature is talking about something far worse than a shark, and with far more teeth.

“I’ll play,” she concedes at last. “How…?” She means to ask him what this serene death will entail, what she will have to do, what she will have to lose, but when she looks for him, he is already standing on the edge of the pool, staring back at her. It is a blatant invitation.

By the time she mounts the pool edge, he has already submerged, and floats just beneath the surface, watching her with eyes that gleam with their own weird luminescence. She hesitates. As the creature has not stated his intentions, she has no idea whether she is supposed to remove her clothing or not. A hand breaks the surface and beckons her in.

The water is warm, warmer even than the humid air above. It immediately permeates her clothes, weighing them down and threatening to pull her under. She paddles quickly, treading water and trying to keep her head above the surface, until his arm slides beneath hers, aiding her buoyancy. This close, she can see every detail on his skin. She watches as the water pearls on his subtly sculpted scales, and the crystalline beads on his black lips trickle over his chin - and she tries not to look at his eyes.

Then, his claws are pulling her down. The surface closes over her head with some finality and she panics, kicking and thumping at anything within reach, trying to get away and swim upwards. To no avail: his claws are too deeply embedded within the fabric of her outer garments, and her every desperate stroke is causing a new tear. Eventually, the tugging sensation ceases and she swims upward with strong strokes, unhampered by the shredded clothing that is sinking despondently to the bottom of the pool.

Elsa surfaces with a great, noisy gasp and promptly swims for the edge, where she grasps the rim with the desperation of a shipwrecked sailor grasping a board. Suddenly, serrated teeth don’t seem so bad. A few deep breaths return her breathing and state of mind to normal, and that is when she realises she cannot see the vampire. She turns slowly, keeping hold of the edge for safety, and finds him in the middle of the pool behind her, submerged from the eyes down. As she watches, he tilts his head back and breathes out through his teeth, making a soft, trilling noise and causing the birth of a small stream of bubbles.

“Serene?” she demands, angrily.

The male smiled under the water, the gills on the side of his neck working visibly. “I haven’t started killing you yet.”

He swims to her side, barely stirring the surface – quite a feat for a being of his size – and begins to prise her fingers from the edge.

“I’d really rather hang on myself,” Elsa dissembles politely, but the vampire is not listening. He has found the sliced thumb and is staring intently at the wound. The blood, mixed with water, has gone a paler shade, and is running freely over her hand. There is a suggestion of a pale tongue working behind dark lips, and then the moment passes, and his attention is on her again.

“For how long?”

“As long as I need to,” Elsa replies, although the point is now moot as he has both her hands and has turned her to face him. She wonders, not for the first time, what has become of these vampires; why they now seem to be able to stand the water, while those closer to her home are most definitely still repelled by it. She hopes the rest are not going to follow suit. Then her breath is driven from her chest as the wall of the pool collides painfully with her back, and she feels the press of his cold, scaled body holding her there.

Elsa notes that he is smiling again, that same sharp-edged grin that had so unsettled her earlier, and as he adjusts his position, she comes to the conclusion that all men, even the undead, really are only after one thing.

Elsa is twenty-five and hardly a shrinking violet, so she has little trouble accepting and keeping pace with the creature’s initial advances. She finds his kiss a little on the sharp side, and his touch on the rough side of playful, but all in all, she handles the situation - and the vampire – well, and puts up with the salt water stinging the many minor scratches he has inflicted with good grace. Presently, all activity ceases and he is looking at her with bright eyes, anticipation curving his black lips into a smile.

Beneath the water, Elsa’s legs dangle freely, and far below she can see the submerged arches and columns, wavering slightly. In some respects, it is a little unsettling, and comes with a sense of vertigo that she cannot immediately dispel - but he has not allowed her to slip or become submerged again, and she holds onto the hope that this will continue.

There is a moment’s rough shifting and rearranging of two buoyant bodies, and then they are joined. Elsa draws in a deep breath, allowing herself to luxuriate in the sensation of the water lapping restlessly against her skin, the close press of a heavy male form, and the growing pleasure that pervades her core. Presently, it seems to Elsa that she is lying a little lower in the water, the cool waves tickling her throat, where before they rolled over her chest, and she immediately protests. The vampire obligingly grasps her legs behind the knee and pulls them up to wrap them about his narrow hips, encouraging her to hold on with her arms as well. No sooner has she done so than he kicks off from the wall, floating on his back just beneath the surface, while Elsa clings on above him, amused at the novelty, despite herself.

For a while, they float together, he pulling in a strong backstroke that culminates each time with an upward thrust of his hips while his hair splays around beneath him like fronds of dark weed. Then he stops, and his arm curls out of the water to draw her head down for a kiss.

Elsa has been kissed before, of course - the creature himself has already done so tonight – but this one loses her. The press of his lips is cold and deep and perfect, like a waterfall plunge pool on the hottest day of the year. It calms her, so much so that her breathing becomes slow and regular, right up until the moment when he submerges both his head and hers, and she comes straight back up with a spluttering reproach.

For a moment there is no response other than a smile from beneath the rippling surface, and then he emerges, glistening and trilling, and takes the kiss he has been denied. Although her senses are reeling, Elsa is aware enough of her surroundings to realise that they are slowly sinking again, and this time, unwilling to break the clinch, she holds her breath. Abruptly, they plummet downwards, clamped together, while the kiss becomes ever more passionate. They surface quickly, though, a few undulations of the vampire’s long body carrying them effortlessly back to the air.

Moments pass while each regards the other, contemplating.

“Come below with me,” he offers.

“I don’t want to die yet,” she counters.

He chuckles, a wet, gurgling, absurdly cheerful sound. “For the count of twenty, then.”

Elsa considers this. In her youth she had dived regularly for pearls, and could quite happily count to two hundred underwater – not that she had any intention of telling him that.

“Twenty it is.”

He is considerate enough to wait until she is ready before taking them down again.

_One, two, three…_

They hang suspended in the water, still joined, and Elsa finds herself, quite naturally, staring at his face once again. Down here, It looks far more as she would expect a vampire face to look, with ridged brows, deep-set eyes and hollowed cheeks.

_Four, five, six, seven…_

Her lungs begin to hurt. She has not dived for pearls since she was thirteen, and it looks as though she is severely out of practice.

_Eight, nine, ten, eleven, twelve…_

Elsa’s vision blurs, and she fancies that dark shapes are darting through the gloom below.

_Thirteen…_

The vampire’s lunge distracts her. He has begun his undulating ascent to the surface, but this time, she is joined to him.

_Fourteen, Fifteen, Sixteen…_

The strong, rocking motion is exciting novel sensations in her, and every inch of their ascent embeds him ever more deeply within her. However, her lungs are starting to strain for lack of air.

_Seventeen, eighteen…_

The hated surface approaches, and with it, the end of her upwards ride. Elsa considers conveying to him that she wants to stay below for just a little longer.

_Nineteen…_

Elsa curses herself for a fool and assists in the ascent, kicking her legs strongly. They emerge and she draws in a long, deep breath, filling her lungs with precious air, whilst mourning the loss of sensation their surfacing has brought.

Her breathing quickly returns to normal, and the two exchange a glance, his calculating, hers a little glazed and unhinged.

“Thirty,” he proposes. His eyes are agleam now, and his lifts her injured hand while he waits for her answer.

Elsa pauses, suppressing a little shudder of pain as his tongue rasps across the raw edges of the wound, now one of many. Despite her fears, the experience is one she wants to see through to its ultimate conclusion. She is almost enjoying this little game, and had her death not been on the cards, she would happily have played it time and again. The question is, how much should she now up the ante?

They bob lightly through the water until the wall is once again at her back and she is pressed between the textured stone of the wall and the scaled hide of the vampire.

“Fifty,” she counters, a small smile tugging at the corners of her lips. He ceases his laving of her thumb to shoot her a surprised glance. Then the kiss resumes, only this time it is tainted with both salt water and blood, and it is the last thing she tastes before the waters close over her like a glass coffin lid.

_Ten, twenty…_

This is nothing like the last time. This time, he is actively thrusting, his clawed hands clenched about her shoulders, and every movement is taking them down into the darkness. Elsa concentrates on holding her breath, focusing on his face to keep an anchor on reality. Only another count of thirty and they will surface as he promised.

_Thirty…_

They hit the floor. His claws fly past her head with a whoosh of bubbles and embed themselves in the stone with a pair of muffled, thunderous cracks. Elsa’s lungs protest, but her need for oxygen is almost overridden by another need – for the creature to finish what he has started.

_Forty…_

Elsa is lucidly aware of the weight of the water pressing down on her. A small stream of bubbles escapes her lips against her will, and she looks meaningfully and repeatedly from his face to the surface. He nods.

_Fifty…_

The bubbles caused by his movements run in long tickling lines across her flanks. Any moment, he will push out for the surface, she is sure. Elsa tries not to think of the finality of the sound his claws made penetrating the rock.

_Sixty…_

Elsa loses hope. She is going to die here at the bottom of a drowned hall. She accepts this even as her survival instinct kicks in and forces unwise physical reactions from her. Her attacks don’t even break the vampire’s stride.

_Seventy…_

She can hear her own heartbeat getting fainter, and she understands that the deprivation of air is affecting her physical sensations. Somehow, perversely, the more her lungs crave air, the more intense her pleasure becomes.

_Eighty…_

Maybe her death won’t be so unpleasant after all, she thinks.

_Ninety…_

A sharp stinging pain in her neck almost provokes another attack, but Elsa’s mind is lulled, and her vision darkens, although she does not know that it is because her blood is suffusing the water.

_One hundred…_

  
Eyelids flickering, she locks gazes with the creature once again and asks, mutely, for release.

He smiles.

_One hundred and ten…_

At last, her consciousness fading, Elsa understands why he looks so different underwater.

It isn’t the water that distorts him.

It’s the air.

* * *

Rahab pins the woman’s body beneath him as the last convulsions wrack her frame, taking his ultimate satisfaction from the death spasms, unmatched in their intensity.

He unhooks his claws from the bedrock and lets the limp form float away in a cloud of blood. Already, the shadows are coming to life in the submerged archways, and those who have waited patiently for him to finish swoop in to scoop up the scraps from his table.

Let them feast. He has taken what he wanted, and he has no desire to be there when they tear the flesh from the bone and glut themselves on living blood. it has begun to sicken him. He will not speak of it to his brethren, nor even to his children, for fear they would see it as a weakness, but still the truth taxes him.

These days, he finds the salt tang of brine almost as alluring as the salt tang of blood.


End file.
